He had been a Liberal Democrat councillor and candidate for both Westminster and European elections, for many years chaired Darlington’s Hebrew Congregation and the town’s branch of the mental health charity MIND, was committed to improving inter-faith relationships and played in the Wimbledon veterans’ tennis championship until his late 70s.

 

He was born in Czechoslovakia of German parents. His grandfather died at Auschwitz. After moving to London, he met his wife-to-be Valerie and proposed six days later. “What kept you?” asked Valerie.

“She was Audrey Hepburn, you know. Perfect,” Peter once said.

In 1965 the family moved to the North-East – “I needed to get away from my mother” – buying a house in Darlington that had been owned by another member of the Jewish community.

He became sales director of the Ernest and Henry button factory at St Helen Auckland – “even in New York high society I would be seen admiring ladies’ buttons rather than their bosoms” – before opening an estate agency in Darlington in 1978.

He and Valerie had three children - Julie, Matthew and Wendy - and two grandchildren - Abby and Josh. Matthew is an airline pilot based in the USA, Wendy has Down’s Syndrome which drove his commitment to MIND and other mental health issues.

Peter’s funeral service will be held in the Jewish section of the West Cemetery in Darlington today (March 30) at 10:30am. Valerie, he supposed, had already decreed the engraving on his gravestone: “It was never dull.”

Full article can be read by clicking on the link below

The Northern Echo Article